


willow weep for me

by Antimonicacid



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1930s, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 14:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13526202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antimonicacid/pseuds/Antimonicacid
Summary: “There is someone special in this world. Someone who exists just for you and who you exist just for her.”Steve nods along, not really getting it, but happy to hear her talk anyways.  He hears the her in his mother’s sentence, and although he doesn’t think much of it it burrows into him. It becomes an ugly stain that won’t ever wash away.As a four year old, however, he doesn’t think much of it.





	willow weep for me

**Author's Note:**

> See Ira I told you I'd write it

_ Oh weeping willow tree,  _ _  
_ _ Weep, in sympathy,  _

_ … _

Pinks and blues. Flowering without pattern across Steve’s chubby pale fingers, marring his pristine palms, blossoming past his wrist and encroaching upon his forearm. He sits curled up in the space between the couch’s ugly floral print back and the ugly yellow wall of his ugly living room inside his ugly house. Wide eyed and amazed at the sorcery taking place right before him unprecedented and unknown in his four years of life experience.

This is the first time Steve Rogers makes contact with his soulmate. 

His mother finds him like this only a few minutes later. Her voice soft and worried as she scolds him for disappearing right before her eyes and hiding away. 

“Oh Stevie, what did you do to your arm?” She says this with exasperation woven into Irish accented voice. The scolding nonetheless lightened with a smile. He looks at her eyebrows drawing out worry lines in her forehead, the crooked tooth peeping out behind her pink chapped lips, and the softness of her dimples making themselves known. The young Steve files this away to the back of his head and stores it away in his subconscious. He memorizes the way that his mother smiles at him. 

Steve scratches his ear, shrugs his bony shoulders as high as they can go and answers in a clear high pitched voice. “It came outta nowhere, mama. It’s a  _ miracle _ .”  He emphasizes the vocabulary learned from bedtime stories. “Came outta nowhere.  _ Fwoosh. _ ” He emphasizes the sound effect with a flourish of his hands. 

His mother smiles as she lowers herself to meet Steve’s height, but oddly enough won’t look him in the eye. Her hands, slender and cool, presses against the stains on his palm. Traces the shapes of the pink and blues (watercolors perhaps?) and smiles. Sadder. 

He watches her, head tilted and studying her movements before he asks “What is it?” Unsure. Nervous. He’s scared of the answer- worried that he might have done something bad. 

“You were right the first time,” She whispers. Now she looks him in the eyes, both hands clasping Steve’s in her cool embrace as she says just as quiet as before, but much more firm “It’s a miracle, Stevie.” 

...

Steve learns about soulmates. He learns about destiny. He learns about the phenomena of connections far beyond what they as a human population knows, far beyond what science can explain, far beyond anything that the mind can begin to comprehend. 

He is mesmerised. 

Steve is taught about the limitations of the connection as a four year old in his ugly house inside ugly living room sitting on his ugly couch talking to his beautiful mother. He doesn’t fully understand it all, but appreciates it nonetheless as she gives him the most barebones explanation of it. 

“There is someone special in this world. Someone who exists just for you and who you exist just for her.” 

Steve nods along, not really getting it, but happy to hear her talk anyways.  He hears the  _ her _ in his mother’s sentence, and although he doesn’t think much of it it burrows into him. It becomes an ugly stain that won’t ever wash away. 

As a four year old, however, he doesn’t think much of it. 

“This person is so special to you that you and her share a  _ connection _ . A, hmm... a  bond or a,  _ hmm… _ ” she sees his confused expression and tries to think of an easy way for him to understand and as she hums while puzzling it over her eyes land on the knitting material to the side of the couch. She picks up thread of blue yarn and a thread of pink perhaps drawing inspiration from the mess on Steve’s hand.  “It’s like you two are pieces of string tied tight together.” and as she talks she knots the two.  “And this tie  _ connects _ you.” She demonstrates by pulling at the yarn neither coming undone.  “It makes it so that you two are always together, no matter how long the string may be and the length between the two ends.” 

Steve watches as the balls of yarn are pulled further and further away from one another, a spiral of pink and blue reaching across the cushions of the couch in opposite directions, but still meeting in the middle. In the neat knot his mother so expertly created. 

“You are connected and through that connection magic can happen. We call you ‘soulmates’.” 

Steve’s attention is drawn back to his hand. Mesmerised. He asks with his voice not even breaking a whisper “Are you my soulmate, mama?” and she laughs loud and surprised and amused.

“No Stevie I’m not.” She says while pushing his hair back. “Your soulmate will be younger. Prettier and just for you.” She scrunches her nose up. “You wouldn’t want me as one. Anyways I have my own.” 

Steve nods, disappointed but excited nonetheless. “Is daddy your soulmate?” 

And the sad smile is back and for a second Steve worries he said something wrong, but then she cups his cheek with her hand and answers “You’re so smart, sweetie. Yes. Yes he was.” 

…

He ages and his fascination never dies, just grows with him as more and more pieces fall into place of the intricate puzzle before him. The magic only happens on his left arm and from this he deduces that it only appears on one for his soulmate too. He knows that the marks can extend from his fingertips to his shoulder, but never past. Any material that can be construed as something used for writing will show up, fresh and wet as if he had placed it there himself. 

He thinks of it like a mystery. He thinks of himself as a detective as he discovers more and more clues pointing towards his soulmate. Towards his other half. 

When Steve is five years old he learns how to write the word “hi” and he is overcome with excitement. He scribbles on his arm with the ink pen to his mother’s fond exasperation and waits eager and impatient for some sort of response. One doesn’t come and his excitement crumples into righteous fury interspersed with a sprinkling of soul crushing disappointment. 

“What if my soulmate is dead?” he asks morbid and depressed.

“What if your soulmate is asleep?” his mother shoots back with a raised eyebrow. 

Steve fidgets in his chair, attempts to stomp his feet, but finds his legs too short to properly reach the floor. “Maybe…” He allows. 

The next morning Steve wakes up and finds on his left wrist black ink wiggly and unsure that mirrors back “hi.” 

A puzzle. A mystery that falls more and more into place as the marks of ink and paint and chalk dust his left arm through out the next year. 

The marks only show up at night, he wakes up with them covering his arm from his fingertips to shoulder as if his soulmate is eager to let herself take up space and be known. 

There is rarely writing. A scribbled “hi” written again and again and again looping around his wrist like a bracelet chaining himself to her. Shaky and unsure there is a name. Jamie.  _ Jamie Jamie Jamie. _ it is written only once but in Steve’s head it repeats day in and day out as a constant nonstop song that rings in his head as his favorite melody. 

These are the only two words that make sense to Steve, but there are others. Unrecognizable to him are letters strung together in a script that he hasn’t learned. He asks his mother if she can read it and she squints and tilts her head before shaking it with a sad no. 

“You’ve got a hard one, Stevie. I don’t think your soulmate lives in America.” 

Steve’s face is horrified. Jaw opened in disbelief and wide eyes that threaten to spill over with tears. “So I’m never going to meet her?” he asks with each word that tumbles out of his mouth breaking something inside his chest.

“Now Stevie that just ain’t true,” his mother scolds him with her hands on her hips and accent thickened with mock disappointment. “Now I’m here aren’t I?” she asks with her head cocked to the side and an amused glint in her blue eyes. 

Steve nods. Unsure, but a new hope instilled in him. “Yes,” he answers with a sniffle. “You are.”

“And your daddy was here in America too, right?” 

And Steve nods again while wiping his eye and smudging ink across his cheek. 

His mother grins ear to ear, crooked tooth flashing, her face glowing. “Distance isn’t anything but another knot in your thread. May seem inconvenient, but really it’s just tying you even tighter together. No matter how far away your connection is still there. Stretching on and on you’re always there together.” 

Steve doesn’t know what language his soulmate is speaking not to mention what country she’s currently is in. Maybe she’s already in America for all he knows. Maybe she’s learning English as he sits there doing nothing but crying. Steve stands up straighter, or as straight as his  _ slightly _ crooked spine lets him. “It’s okay she’ll come to America and then we’ll meet and then we’ll get married and then we’ll buy a dog,” he rushes out with his frail chest puffed out and confidence etched into his words.

“Oh, Stevie, you can’t get a dog, you’re allergic.”

…

Steve is six and Steve is starting kindergarten with an electrifying excitement that keeps him up all night. The schoolhouse was built only a few years back, but the city hadn’t devoted much attention to the materials used in it, leaving it already with a run down and creaky exterior. Still, it looms above Steve as he walks through its swinging doorway. It stretches on forever while he locates his class. It is a terrifying immense creature that feels as if it will swallow Steve whole if he lets it. 

He doesn’t want that to happen, and with his chest puffed out he makes his way into his homeroom. He shows up to class with a thick beanie on top his head and when asked by one of the kids he answers with a voice that almost sounds proud “I’m fightin’ an ear infection!” 

“So you got pus leakin’ outta your ears?” A boy with squinting eyes and a red round face asks. 

Steve shakes his head slow, a tingling sensation edging up his neck and down his arms telling him that he might’ve gotten himself in a bad situation. “No,” he corrects him. “I use to have pus leakin’ outta my ears.” 

There is a murmuring that spreads across the overflowing classroom. One by one each student’s attention snaps to Steve, their too clean overly starched Sunday clothes forming rows of doppelgangers, and what feels like a million eyes boring into him. These whispers are a scary kind. A type that Steve feels like he’s heard before. The type that lines doctor offices after his physical examination. The type that the neighbor women offer up in hushed coos and clucks as his mother walks past their stoops. Steve feels like he’s going to die in that room at these whispers. At these voices of children that stare and whisper and refuse to move, but then, miraculously, it is interrupted. 

A brave girl with pigtails takes a bold stance. She stands and now all eyes are on her and in a shrill voice she calls out “PUS BOY!” 

The first day of kindergarten doesn’t go well. Neither does the second and unsurprisingly the third also consists of nothing but shit. He’s dubbed pus boy for most of the week up until the kind hearted teacher devotes a few minutes before lunch to come to Steve’s defense. 

“Not all of us are born with strong bodies. In the end treating the weak with disrespect just makes  _ you _ the real weak one.” 

There are stares coming from all sides and Steve wants to curl into his seat, but refuses to cower, and instead looks straight ahead meeting no one’s eyes. 

“I want to encourage all of you children to place yourself in the shoes of your fellow peers. To allow yourself to empathise with those less fortunate. Nobody is a ‘pus boy’.” She says with conviction and a nod even in the face of 36 kindergarten children giggling. “Class dismissed!” she calls in unison as a young boy coughs out “ _ pus boy _ .” 

Steve sits at his desk while the rest of the class filters out. He dips his fountain pen and presses the nib against his skin, hesitant, but still sure of the letters he draws out. 

_ PUS BOY. _

He’s still. Staring at the letters on his wrist and then caught off guard when they’re followed by others that appear on their own volition. Ink seeps out of his skin, letter by letter it blooms similar to the paint almost two years ago as they spell out a message just for Steve. His soulmate writing just for him. 

_ BITCH _

Steve howls with laughter until he’s out of breath and wheezing with his head between his legs and shoulders quivering and his lung convulsing and he’s still laughing laughing laughing. 

…

On Monday morning Steve shows up to class with his chest puffed out and his shoulders as straight as his slightly crooked spine will allow it. He walks to his desk with a swagger in his step, his head hatless and proud, and his ears miraculously free of anything that could resemble an infection of any type. 

“Hey pus boy! Where’s your hat?” Robert, a boy with a round face and squinty eyes asks. 

Steve walks with as much confidence as six year old skinny legs can walk until he’s pressing into Robert’s desk. From his standing position he almost comes off as tall in comparison with his hands on his hips mimicking his mother’s most intimidating look and he almost seems frightening. “You’re not gonna call me pus boy no more,” he says with almost no hint of fear in his voice. 

“Ain’t I?” Robert asks, still sitting, but now staring back with a hard intensity that draws the attention of the rest of the class as they wait in anxious impatience to see how long the teacher will stay away from the room. 

Steve takes in a breath. Refuses to look away with his stern blue eyes as he repeats “You ain’t gonna call me pus boy no more.”

Now Robert stands. Slow and dramatic as he steps away from the desk. Moves with a grin closer and closer to Steve until their chests are almost touching. Steve watches Robert cross his arms, can see a doodle of a flower peeking out from the inside of his wrist.  _ So even bullies got soulmates, _ Steve thinks as Robert enunciates clear and focused: “Pus. Boy.” 

With a yell that fills the room and shocks a generation Steve Rogers cries out in battle mode as he charges forward to slam his thin frail body into Robert’s. His arms windmilling, his mouth open and screaming, he can hear Robert let out a squeak of surprise as the pair tumble to the ground in a mess of flailing limbs tangled together. The classroom erupts into a cacophony of noise as herds of children push around them into a tight circle all watching Steve’s bony arms strike down again and again onto Robert’s. Screaming, face red, Steve launches a full out assault that lasts almost a full four seconds as Robert regains his wits and without ceremony flips their position. Now it’s Steve’s turn to get hit. The bigger boy’s fists rain down on Steve’s body without any sort of skill, but more than enough force to bruise and burn and sting like nothing the young boy had felt before. 

It’s over in less than a minute. Fourth grade boys across the hall wrench the two apart on the direction of their near hysterical kindergarten teacher as the two continue to spit and scream at one another. 

“I didn’t do nuffin’!” Robert defends himself through a bloated lip. “He’s crazy! A complete psycho! Lock him up!” 

Steve is tired out enough that he can only offer up weak defiance towards the sweaty hands holding him back. He doesn’t know how to respond in anyway that’d be considered an eloquent defense and instead offers up the strong alternative of “BITCH!” 

The room goes wild. 

…

He’s never been scolded harder than that Monday morning walk home as his mother rants about Steve’s “Downright embarrassing display”. She reprimands. She curses. She yells and spits and prays before finally she asks him “Where did you even learn that type of language?” 

Steve could answer that he learned it from the men down the street who plays cards on their front porch. Or he could claim that he heard it near the docks as fishermen load up their haul from the day. Hell, he could even say that he heard it from his mother’s own quiet tired ramblings as she slips into the house early in the morning, back from an all night shift at the hospital before the sun even has a chance to rise, and as she tries to prevent waking Steve by keeping the lights off she instead does the opposite by banging her toe or elbow or hip into furniture. Her quiet shameful cursing. 

All those things are true, but none of them feel right, so instead Steve answers “My soulmate wrote it on me,” 

His mother clucks her tongue and shakes her head. “Well ain’t she a vulgar one...” 

…

It’s months later into the new year and school hasn’t gotten any better with the plethora of names aimed at Steve, but at the very least nobody calls him pus boy. 

He can’t talk to his soulmate in any sort of eloquent way and instead the pair settle on something a bit different. In first grade Steve discovers art and there’s nothing he loves more than sharing it. He doodles on his arm. Long and winding vines that curl around his wrist and up his forearm to blossom into rose petals. Imitations of a fireplace and etches of his classroom and clouds that take shape in the sky. 

It isn’t uncommon. For people to have their left or right arm completely immersed in words and art and anything to show love to one another. His first grade teacher scolds him for his distractedness, but his mother looks upon it with fondness. He lives in a series of mixed reviews from varying adults and children, but none of it is abnormal in the slightest. 

They settle on this communication, of Steve taking up most of the space on their shared arm and his soulmate responding with tally marks and “hi”s around their wrist and palm and fingers. 

Steve isn’t sure when or how, but somewhere along the line his mind begins to refer to their arm as shared and their hand as one and their bodies inhabited together.

It’s a thought that comforts him.

...

At the age of eight Steve was given a dime for lunch, a gift from his mother who already struggles enough with money, and in her generosity Steve finds his own stubbornness. A stubbornness that wraps his fingers tight and sweaty around the coin even as he’s shoved against another body and then a wall and then a ground. Steve pushes himself up from the ground, knuckles scratched by the gravel underhand, as he elevates himself into a shaking standing position. There’s two boys to either side of him. Taller, older, stronger. He raises his fists in front of him, thumbs tucked in improperly and body swaying. 

“Give it up, Rogers,” The one with a mess of brown freckles dotting his face says while having the audacity to not even be winded. 

Steve spits pink tinted saliva onto the ground. Hands still raised as he shakes his head a clear defiant no. 

The other boy with ashy blonde hair that’s growing too close to his eyes spits back, a loogie that lands on Steve’s shoes, disgusting and thick and yellow. “Then we gonna take it from you.” And the two step forward, shadows growing as the light is stretched thin in the alley by the buildings to either side. Steve takes in a deep breath.

There is a yell. A barbaric screech that sounds exactly what Steve would imagine war cry and a boy his age runs into the alley arms pumping and head down. The two bullies look over, too shocked by the display to even consider the idea that they might need to move out of the way, as The Wild Child before them charges into Freckles side, slamming both their bodies into The Human Loogie. 

There’s yells from all four boys in the alley and Freckles curses while trying to grab their unknown assailant, but is unsuccessful. Instead The Wild Child slams his forehead into Freckles nose. Blood spurts out like a faucet with too high pressure, dripping from Freckles nose and onto The Wild Child’s hair, he’s too shocked to do anything other than lay on the ground, clutching his nostrils shut, and trying to stop the erratic blood flow. 

The Human Loogie has more time to prepare himself and grabs The Wild Child by his short brown and bloody hair, undeterred by a repeated elbow slamming into his chest, The Human Loogie shakes him for all he’s worth. The Wild Child continues a constant stream of yelling, face furious and scrunched up while words Steve doesn’t recognize as English explode from his red mouth. Steve doesn’t know what to do, but that’s never stopped him from acting before. He reaches behind him and peels the sticky lid off a nearby trashcan, and with his full body’s weight propels himself forward onto The Human Loogie. He may not weigh much, but it’s enough to shake him off and allow The Wild Child to slip free from his grasp.

Steve yells out “Here!” and tosses the trash can lid towards him which is caught mid air. The Wild Child cocks his arm back and with a swing that would make Babe Ruth proud knocks it hard against The Human Loogie’s jaw. 

There is a beat. A silence interrupted only by the groans of the two bullies on the ground where for a blissful second the only thing Steve is aware of is the now sticky dime safe and secured in his palm. 

The words: “KILL THEM!” break the moment. Or rather it comes out more like “keel ‘dem!” considering that Freckles is only able to scream this from behind his hands cradling a broken nose. 

“Oh shit,” The Wild Child says in a whisper that’s only the slightest bit terrified. Steve doesn’t move, so The Wild Child does for him, grabbing his left wrist and tugging with a ferocious need as he now yells “GO!” 

Steve follows behind him just as well as his body can manage as they weave through foot traffic and cars and street vendors. The two busted up bullies behind them falling further and further behind as they expertly navigate the streets of Brooklyn. 

“Stop! Stop!” Steve finally wheezes out after a good bit of running. The Wild Child obliges, also out of breath, but nowhere near the amount of exhaustion Steve is displaying with his hands on his knees and his entire body burning red and the unnatural wet creaking noise wracking his body with each breath he inhales. 

The pair decide it’d be a good idea to sit down without needing to say a single word between them. They sit side by side on the curb, The Wild Child’s knees exposed to the world in all their scraped up glory. They push against Steve’s own knobby kneecaps, hidden away from any chill through thick trousers, but still, he can appreciate the contact. 

The Wild Child says “Hi.” 

Steve says “Hey.” 

The Wild Child grin and once again that unfamiliar language pours from his tongue in a cascade of letters that wash over Steve’s ears. 

Steve says “How are you today?” 

The Wild Child laughs and pushes his hand through his brown hair to slick it back. “I am doing good,” he answers with a thick tongue that clashes over the words in a way he didn’t when speaking his native language. (He’ll later learn that it’s Bulgarian) Still. Steve likes his voice. Likes the grin on his face. 

“I’m Steve Rogers,” he says and holds his hand out for a proper shaking. 

“I am James Buchanan Barnes,” James Buchanan Barnes says while taking Steve’s hand in a firm handshake. 

Steve tries the name out. Tries to let it roll off his tongue with the same ease as James does. “James Buckanon Barnes,” He replies and James laughs. 

“Buchanan. Booooochanaaann,” He draws out without the slightest hint of annoyance in his voice. 

“Buckanon.”

“Buchanan. Buuuke.”

“Buuuuck.” 

“Boooooooooo-”

“Buuuuuuuuuuck.”

“Okay. Buck,” Buck gives in easy to the accidental rebranding. 

…

James Buchanan Barnes is almost as new to Brooklyn as he is to America. He fits in easy with the class even with his scarce English. Buck becomes Bucky and the nickname catches fast considering that there were three other boys named James in their grade alone. 

Bucky is new and Bucky is popular with a speed that rivals Steve’s own instant descent into class cretin his first day. 

But still, Bucky- well Bucky likes Steve. Bucky sits by him during lunch and Bucky laughs at his jokes and Bucky is drawn towards him in a way no other person had ever made themselves available to Steve before. 

It takes almost a week for them to realize.

…

It’s their first Friday at school together and Bucky sits inside during lunch with Steve because it’s the first week of true Spring and Steve’s allergies are acting up. The classroom is empty, the two undeservingly trusted enough to not cause too big of a ruckus on their own. Or, perhaps more accurately, there were too sparse teachers in the school to babysit an asthmatic kid and his foreign friend. 

Bucky is translating a book by the window, sunlight pouring in as his thick dark eyebrows bunch together in a determined concentration, studying the text, deciphering its meaning. Steve is off to his side, a pen in hand as he draws on the corner of his classroom textbook. His second grade teacher is the strictest he’s ever had. She allows no lollygagging, no daydreaming, no writing on arms at any time, but now he is alone with no one but Bucky to tell. Swirling looping vines that travel from the paper and out of habit onto his fingers. He places the pen on his finger. 

“Steve! Steve!” Bucky calls out and practically tosses his book onto the floor his excitement unable to be contained. Steve stops his drawing, looks up at Bucky’s bright eyes as he holds out his hand. “My aaah-” he struggles to find the word. “My _ love _ is talking.” He is so so proud. Steve and Bucky stare at the smudge on his finger for half a minute, waiting for it to move, waiting for a message to be relayed. It doesn’t happen and Bucky is disappointed and Steve goes back to his seat as Bucky dusts of his now dented book. 

Steve goes back to drawing, and as soon as his pen touches his skin Bucky lets out an exuberated yelp. 

There is a tingling sensation crawling up Steve’s neck. A chill leaking down his body, locking his joints, telling him that he’s got a bad feeling going on. 

Bucky shows him his hand again. This time the two stare at it for close to five minutes. Steve waiting for the ink to move. (Somewhere inside of him Steve hopes that the ink doesn’t move. That it’ll stay still, that it’ll only dances at his command, that the hand Bucky is holding up is both of their hand.  _ Our hand. _ ) 

It stays still and Steve, bright intelligent Steve, doesn’t know what to do but acts on impulse anyways. 

“She was here! She was here she was here she was here,” Bucky repeats like a mantra as if saying it enough times will cement it as the truth. Steve doesn’t listen. Reaches across his desk and picks up the pen and moves to stand closer to Bucky. 

“Buck. Look.” And then Steve completes the drawing on his finger. A small ring around his pinky that curls around his pale thin digit like a vine. Like a serpent. Steve watches Bucky when he done. Steve stares at Bucky while Bucky stares at his own hand. The ink fresh on his finger. Their finger. ( _ Our Finger _ , Steve thinks in his head.)

“Holy shit,” Bucky says because for a kid who only started learning English in earnest a few months ago his cursing vocabulary is exponentially higher than most of their grade. 

Steve can’t help but notice the small things about Bucky in that moment. The way he moves to his own desk on his own. The way he sits rigid unlike the way Steve is use to seeing the eternally relaxed boy rest. The way his dark eyebrows knit themselves into a concerned expression or how his lips poke out in a pout. Steve notices the small things about Bucky in this moment. Steve notices the inconsistencies of Bucky in this moment. 

The school bell rings for class to begin and the second half of the day functions as usual for everyone but the too quiet pair seated in the back. Their heads pointed down at their desks. Their hands folded on their laps as if afraid to touch someone or scared to see the marks on them or maybe as if they were praying. 

These two eight year olds. Hushed over with an unnatural quiet that hasn’t hit them since they had met. 

When school ends the two are asked to stay behind. Their too stern too strict school teacher Missus Adler worried for her students. 

She asks them what’s wrong. 

The two sit and say nothing. 

She tells them that she can’t help if they don’t tell her.

The two sit and say nothing. 

She threatens to beat them both.

The two sit and say nothing but with a nervous air to them. 

She threatens to call their mothers over. 

Steve speaks up. 

“Ma’am look,” Steve says and as if on cue Bucky holds out his left arm and let’s Steve place his arm next to him. With shaking nervous hands Steve takes his fountain pen and with a single slash draws a line across his own palm. It is mirrored with close to no hesitation on Bucky’s. 

Missus Adler’s lips are pressed tight together. Her sturdy frame sways just the slightest bit as she stares at the two before her. Her hand, subconscious in its desire, rubs her own arm. 

“Oh you poor children,” she says with the utmost sympathy. 

Bucky bursts into tears. 

The two are only eight and they don’t know what’s going on or how this happened or what is even wrong, but they can feel it in the air. That they had done bad. They they had messed up. That they were not right. A stain that spreads and creeps and seeps into their skin like the blackest ink the words “Oh, you poor children” leaves its mark on them. Tarnishes them. They had done bad. They had messed up. They were not right.

…

_ “Everybody is connected to someone. Everybody has someone that makes them whole. This is God’s gift to mankind. A soulmate. Sometimes though, God has plans that don’t seem to make sense to us. Sometimes God wants us to find love in ways other than marriage. Other than romance. You two will never find another half to love the way your mother loves your father or your grandmother loves her husband, but that is not bad. God has chosen you for a life of celibacy. It is the path he had decreed.”  _

…

Steve lays on his ugly bed in his ugly room inside his ugly home staring at each flash of pen, each slash of ink, each stain that ruins his skin, each ugly ugly mark. It’s dark. His mother is sleeping in the room next to his. Her snores soft and almost familiar enough to be comforting, but they just miss the mark. 

He stares at his skin. He thinks about the pity in his teacher’s voice. In his mother’s eyes. The way Bucky wouldn’t look at him when they had left the school building and the way he had craved just one glance. One moment. Something for Steve to latch onto and hold close to him. 

There is sadness in his chest. A weighted rock that pushes against his already abused lungs, that makes it so he can’t breath, that is poisonous. 

But also.

And he dare not even think it outside of the safety of his seclusion. 

A thought.

A feeling. 

A thrill of excitement. 

_ Bucky is-  _

Steve is overcome with guilt before he can even bare to finish his thought. A rock. Weighing him down. Pushing against his ribs. Crushing. 

He feels like he is being overwhelmed. Like he is being swallowed up by something bigger than him. By the darkness of his room. By the darkness in his chest. Steve is drowning. 

And then. And then there is a familiar tickle. Steve looks down and on his wrist he watches a line form. Followed by another. And another. Two letters. A simple  “Hi”

Steve breaths in and in the safety of the darkness of his room he think, with a thrill of excitement,  _ Bucky is made for me and I am made for him. _

_ … _

_ To weep my tears along the stream _

_ Sad as I can be _

_ Hear me willow and weep for me _

…

The years past with a shortness that Steve isn’t use to. Maybe he’s just growing older, causing time to shift and move with a speed that Steve isn’t sure he can keep up with. Maybe too much happens too fast stifling his sense of rhythm. 

By age ten Bucky can speak English just as well as any kid raised in Brooklyn. Any hints of an accent fading away with a quickness that leaves Steve’s breath short. They both grow taller, Bucky by a whopping three inches, and Steve scraping by with three quarters of an inch growth that he prefers to round up to one. 

Word spreads despite the efforts put to control the rumostatus and neither likes to comment and people don’t bring it up nearly as much as they would had Bucky not been there and they are quiet in a sea of whispers. 

They grow and change and develop. Bucky continues to become stronger, more handsome, even better. Steve’s body can’t keep up and in a span of five years he manages to contract not only scarlet fever, but rheumatic as well. In his own way he flourishes though. He speaks with a level of assurance in himself that can turn heads (for all the wrong reason) and his sense of justice, of good and right, is cultivated to a standard that even his mother can’t help but comment on. 

Steve is thirteen a nursing a black eye that his mother presses a cool rag against. 

“You need to stop picking fights,” she says only half hearted in her attempts to scold. She’s too use to this by now. 

“It wasn’t my fault,” he says only offering up a half assed reply that he knows isn’t good enough. 

“It’s okay to run away,” his mother tries. 

“They were picking on a kid,” Steve argues, lip stuck in a pout and arms crossed. “A kid no older than eleven or twelve and these high schoolers are picking on a kid.” His pout turns into a grimace and his mother tilts her head with a strange expression on her face and Steve rushes to defend his position. “I can’t run away when there are bullies. Not when they’re picking on someone else and not even when they’re picking on me. If nobody stays and if nobody stands up to them then they’ll just think they can get away with it scot free. I can’t set that example, ma. It isn’t right of me.”

“Somebody gotta stand up to the bullies in this world,” her voice is quiet, wavering and far away as if she’s talking behind a veil of a memory. “That’s what your father would say,” she elaborates. “‘Somebody gotta stand up to the bullies in this world.’” 

Steve nods and shuffles in his chair. Embarrassed and nervous at the comparison. “Sometimes I wish i could run away, but I just can’t, ma.”

She smiles, Steve’s favorite smile where her crooked tooth can be shown, and she cups his cheek in her cool thin hand. “Then don’t run away.” 

…

Bucky gets his first girlfriend when he is fourteen and it is a torrid love affair that rocks their eighth grade class for nothing short of two weeks. 

The first part of the interest is in girl. Her name is Eleanor and not only is she the most popular gal in their school, but she is also a ninth grader. A real high school lass who had taken it upon herself to set her eyes on eighth grade infantile Bucky Barnes. 

The second factor in this is the pursuit. A courting that had taken over a week as the two danced around one another in a game of cat and mouse that had a constant shifting of roles and power dynamics. Bucky leaves a note on Eleanor’s desk asking if she’d fancy a walk around the school with him during lunch break. Eleanor reads over it with a composed blank face before she places it neatly in the garbage bin. 

In homeroom Bucky is straightening his school supplies for the day when Eleanor makes an appearance, her red hair dressed up in curls that bounce when she walks, and she situates herself on top of Bucky’s desk. With her legs crossed like the lady she is as she asks if Bucky would accompany her on her walk home after school. Bucky hums in consideration, his lips turned up in the slightest of smirks before turning to stare her straight in the eye and saying “Gee, I would love to, but I can’t. I already promised myself to Steve for the day you see.” 

There is chaos in whispers and stares. 

The third, and perhaps, most scandalous aspect of their relationship is that the two are not soulmates in any shape or form. Eleanor who writes letters to a boy in Chicago far off during her free period. Neat small lettering that spans the length of her arm in two different handwriting that shifts and changes everyday. 

Bucky who is- 

Well Bucky- 

Well he’s special is how the adults phrase it.

Neither are made for each other and both of them know it and neither of them particularly care. 

It is a scandal. 

Bucky gets his date a warm Friday evening and the two enjoy each other at Coney Island. Steve is home alone, his mother working a six to twelve shift at the hospital a few blocks over, and he got a fat load of nothing to do other than sit around and wait. 

He reads a chapter of a book he had already finished twice before. 

He sketches the interior of his room and then when he’s done with that he draws the living room and the kitchen. 

He organizes his three pairs of shoes (school, play, and church) and cleans the bathroom as best he can. 

He considers drawing on his arm. A tiny cartoon head in the crook of his elbow. He considers what it would be like to feel the drawing sink into him and burn itself through their connection in Steve’s right arm into Bucky’s own left arm. He considers what it would be like to receive a reply. 

Bucky and Steve haven’t communicated through flesh for five years, never being told, but understanding nonetheless that there wasn’t anything innocuous about using their status as soulmates in the same way a boy and girl might. 

His arm is bare. Stripped away and naked. His arm is unnatural in its cleanliness. He hates this.

He doesn’t draw a cartoony head in the crook in his elbow.

Bucky doesn’t reply with any updates.

Steve Rogers runs out of things to do within two hours and if this is what Bucky dating is going to be like then he wants nothing to do with it. 

He hates this. 

…

_ “Willow weep for me. Willow weep for me. Bend your branches greeeeeen-” _

The pair of lovebirds only lasts six days. The date was droll and the conversational skill between the two of them nonexistent. It was a boring mutually uninteresting relationship, but that of course doesn’t stop Bucky from being dramatic. 

“ _ Listen to my plea. Listen willow and weep for meeeeeeee,” _ Bucky calls out in an impressive tenor from the comfort of Steve’s living room floor. 

“Bucky shut up,” Steve tries while pinching the bridge of his nose. The Bucky Fun Time Show having gone from kinda funny to downright irritating a full hour ago. 

Bucky clutches his chest, stares up at Steve on the couch with big round puppy dog eyes, and takes in a deep breath before belting out at the top of his lungs “ _ GONE MY LOVER’S DREAM! LOVELY SUMMER’S DREAM-” _

“Oh my God,” Steve groans out and covers both ears with his hands. Bucky is undeterred. Instead opting to crawl to Steve, pawing at his legs like a cat as he drapes himself onto Steve’s lap. 

“ _ GONE AND LEFT ME HERE” _

Steve takes the biggest pillow on the couch and attempts to smother himself with it. 

“ _ TO WEEP MY TEARS INTO THE STREAM” _

Steve decides to take a different initiative and instead tries to smother  _ Bucky _ with the pillow. Bucky laughs, not bothered in the slightest at the weak attempt on his life as he holds back Steve’s stick arms with ease. 

“ _ SAD AS I CAN BE, _ ” and now it sounds like an accusation aimed at Steve. Bucky pointedly shaking Steve’s shoulders while screaming the next line “ _ HEAR ME WILLOW AND WEEP FOR MEEEEEEE _ ” 

Steve chortles and takes the opportunity of Bucky being distracted by his own emotional singing to elbow him hard across the chest. The air is knocked out of him in a  _ whoosh _ and Steve shoves the both of them onto the floor, the two now wrestling in earnest with thankfully no music to accompany them. 

It doesn’t last more than a minute. Partially due to them laughing too hard to continue much with anything. Partially from Steve becoming winded far too easily. Largely because of Steve. Skinny little nerd Steve, straddling Bucky’s lap and breathing too hard and red all over. Looking too long at Bucky and his messy hair. Staying still too long with his left hand inches away from Bucky’s head as he leans on it for support. Staring at Bucky. Studying Bucky. 

Their eyes meet for a fraction of a second. For the duration of a skipped heartbeat. For less than a stolen breath.  

In this miniscule length of time that extends itself forever Steve can hear the whisper of music as the next two lines of the song echoes in Steve’s mind. 

Bucky’s leg twitches and Steve rolls off of him with a speed he’s never demonstrated before and the two boy separate themselves with a distance that in actuality is only a foot or two but for them it feels like miles and miles stretching on.

There is a silence. A deadness in the air that lasts for a thousand heartbeats and  a million shaking breaths that they dare not let out. 

There is a silence and then Bucky leaves. 

“See ya tomorrow, pal.”

“G’nite Buck.” 

…

_ “Whisper to the wind, _ _  
_ _ And say that love has sinned” _

…

Bucky dates other girls and Steve actually enjoys the majority of them. They smile at him with red lips and flirty boredom in a way that makes it apparent that they’re only interested in him in the same detached way one might make conversation with your date’s younger brother. They come in waves of two or three every few months, no relationship lasting longer than a couple of weeks, and most all of them making no lasting impression that Steve can notice. 

Bucky takes to arranging double dates with Steve for a time. The idea is nice, but at fifteen Bucky is tall and handsome and charming while Steve is. Well Steve isn’t anything  _ bad _ per say, but he isn’t exactly what the ladies are looking for. He tries. He tries to show up to the first two or three with slicked back hair and a freshly pressed shirt and a smile on his face, but when he arrives and he sees his date and he sees her see him and he sees her face fall. 

Well.

Well it doesn’t exactly feel good, ya know? 

Steve hates dating and Bucky seems to understand that with a small layer of disappointment. The flow of girls slow down and when Steve asks about it Bucky says “Can’t over fish the pool” and Steve snorts because that’s a stupid comment. 

The two of them are okay. The two of them are good. 

…

“ _ STEEEEVIIIIEEEEE-”  _ Bucky draws out his name in a long song like voice, his arm thrown over Steve’s bony shoulders, and his lips spread pink and wide in a sloppy grin.

Steve produces a noise halfway between a laugh and a hiccup as he leans his big head against Bucky and soaks up the heat the shared body contact provides. “Yes?” Steve asks and laughs and asks again. “Yes Bucky?” And the name feels so good on his tongue that he can’t help but repeat it again and again. “ _ Bucky Buck Bucko Buckaroooooooo- _ ” 

He may or may not be a musical gift to this world. 

Steve is fifteen and Bucky has just hit sixteen and the two of them are celebrating with everything they got through the magical and illegal wonders of alcohol. 

The speakeasy is a small hole in the wall bar above a restaurant in Manhattan. The steps creak on the way up and the railing was nothing more than a den for pending splinters, but upon entering the above establishment the two boys were met with wonder and excitement. The air vibrated with an enthusiastic warmth full of finger snapping hip swinging music. Bodies filled the floor, girls twirling and men grinning and alcohol sloshing from cups and bottles without a care in the world. 

And there the two boys stood, dumbfounded, not even sure if they belong in a place with so much character and movement, but unable to pull away. 

_ “Steve I’m not so sure that-”  _

And that was all the encouragement Steve needed to physically drag Bucky to the bar counter. 

A sizeable chunk of their spending money burnt through and a few drinks later the two of them teeter on the edge of their shared booth’s seats giggling and fulfilled. 

“Steven Grant Rogers tonight I think I might just get lucky,” Bucky says with a smack of his lips.

Steve can’t help but laugh at Bucky’s incredulous statement. “What? You think some sweet young looker is just gonna come your way out of nowhere?”   
“Pretty much,” Bucky says with a grin that could split his face. 

Steve rolls his eyes and bumps his shoulder into Bucky’s, not able to apply enough force to even slide his along the leather booth’s seat, but hard enough convey his point. 

“So what you gonna do?” He leans forward “Which pick up line is it gonna be this time?” Steve squares his shoulders, slicks back his hair, and says in a low voice “‘Excuse me, ma’am, I don’t mean to be a bother, but I wasn’t aware that they were allowing angels inside of here.’” 

Bucky explodes into a series of chortles and snorts as Steve shrinks back at the quick dismissal of his imitation of flirting. 

“Oh come on, I sounded exactly like you,” Steve mutters into his drink. 

Bucky shakes his head, a lock of brown hair coming loose in the process and bouncing towards his dark teasing eyes. 

He has all the pretty boy charm Steve could never produce.

“That is not what I sound like,” Bucky defends himself unaware of the self loathing popping off behind Steve’s carefully constructed blank mask of a face. “You’re saying the words all wrong.” 

“Oh Bucky, whatever would I do without your insightful and deep critiques!” 

“Shhh shhhhhhh I’m trying to help. You just gotta. Ya know. Ya gotta put more  _ sex _ into it.”

“Virgin.”

“Fuck you.”

“You know, when you said you wanted to get lucky tonight I assumed it’d be with a lass, but hey, we all have those-” 

“ _ Steven _ , _ ”  _ Bucky pinches the bridge of his nose. 

“ _ Bucken,” _ Steve crosses his arms. 

“I will teach you how to flirt.” 

“I wish you the best of luck.” 

They don’t have much luck. Bucky bounces pickup lines off of Steve like a tennis ball on a wall in that none of them seem to stick. Steve can’t imitate the same low voice of Bucky. Can’t seem to contort his body into the sleek and casual posture Bucky exudes. And when Steve fails at this he compensates by teasing Bucky about the corny nature of most of his jokes. 

Even then they’re having fun. The two of them laugh in broken snorts and gasps of breath. Their faces are red, their sides in pain, and they don’t know if it’s from the booze or the general air of comfort around them but they feel a weird safety in touch. Undeterred by the patrons around them they lean against each other for support. They slap the other’s shoulder and ruffle their hair. Bucky shoves Steve in a manner that should be rough, but instead becomes playful in a way that is almost soft. His fingers intertwining in the other’s shirt and Steve shoves him back, but mimics Bucky’s refusal to let him go.

“This,” Bucky says with careful enunciation and both hands on Steve’s shoulders as he tries to get his point across with the utmost sincerity. “This may be the only good idea you’ve ever had, Steven Grant Rogers.” 

Steve rolls his eyes and huffs air out of his bright red cheeks. “Now that just isn’t true. What about that time I-”

“Nope.” 

“You aren’t even letting me finish I-”

“Nahhhhhhhhhhhh.”

“ _ James _ .” 

And Bucky laughs at the steel cold tone and Steve furrows his brows for a second longer before joining in with him and neither can remember what they’re arguing over already distracted by the other’s presence in the room. 

Steve downs another shot before slamming his glass on the table and proclaiming “I’m a fucking genius, Bucky.” 

“Ya damn right ya are, Stevey.” Bucky’s arm moves around Steve and squeezes his shoulders in a firm comforting grip that draws him into his side. Steve can feel himself melt, Bucky’s fingers trace circles on his arm _(their linked arm)_ and it feels like all the encouragement Steve needs as the two sit more close and free than either of them have felt safe doing for far too long. 

Steve looks up at Bucky-he always feels like he’s looking up at Bucky-and his head swims and his eyes can’t focus just right but he can still make out the boyish chub filling out Bucky’s face and the flushed red of his cheeks and the dimple on his chin and the bushy black eyebrows that dominate his features. Steve looks up at Bucky and the blood in his head swirls and breathing becomes a fast and hard and laborious effort where he doesn’t even want to blink he just wants to appreciate all the details of Bucky. 

“ _ Steve… _ ” Bucky’s lips part to form his name in a stuttered whisper and for the first time Steve realizes that his unabashed staring may come off as odd, but when Steve tries to pull away Bucky holds him tighter. His right arm rubs up and down Steve’s own. His piercing stare meets his without hesitation, but not without a similar hue of fear coloring the two. 

Steve looks up at Bucky’s lips bright and pink like an apricot and he wonders if they’d taste the way they look and that thought shakes him to his very core with a flurry of mixed emotions. 

Steve breaths out through his nose and watches Bucky lean towards him as if on instinct and Steve closes his eyes and prepares himself for the unknown.

And he waits.

And he waits. 

And he waits.

Until the wait is too long and when he opens his eyes once again Bucky is staring past him and despite the two still being just as physically close as less than a minute ago there is a distance between them that is unacrossable and not at all unfamiliar. 

This time when Steve pulls away Bucky allows it.

“Do you think she’s pretty?” Bucky asks and juts his chin in the direction of a young dame several tables away. 

“Not at all,” Steve mumbles towards the stained wood on the table as he sinks deeper into his seat. 

“Good that means I got a chance.” With fumbling hands and a sway in his step Bucky pushes himself away from the table and across the floor to the girl. 

Steve watches the familiar steps unfold. The way Bucky smiles at the girl as if she’s the only person in the room capable of making him glow just like that. How he tilts his hat and extends his hand in a greeting that’s made to feel like a proposal. He watches her smile. How she raises an eyebrow in a tricky manner that Steve knows for a fact that Bucky always likes. How she shakes her light brown almost blonde hair that Steve knows is Bucky’s favorite color. 

And Bucky talks.

And the girl laughs. 

And the two touch. Short simples glances of the hands and tugs at the waist and fixing a stray hair that had fallen askew. 

The two laugh. And the two touch. And the two walk away from the table and out of the establishment and disappear. 

And a minute passes. And then another. And then a dozen more. 

And Steve is all alone. 

…

Steve sits at their table and pays for his drink from the wallet Bucky forgot at his seat. Being drunk had gone from new and exciting to just a tiring and ugly experience. His head swims and when he closes his eyes to settle himself he feels like all his guts had been replaced with a warm sick cotton. 

He’s use to nausea- he gets the flu every winter and then some. Steve leans back and hums, distracting himself from the turning in his belly and the heat on his skin and the way Bucky had smiled at that girl like she was the only light in the room. 

When he opens his eyes again Bucky is sliding into a seat across the table. Steve looks with his eyes half closed and his body a messy sprawl on the booth’s leather seat. 

Bucky with his peaches and cream skin. Bucky with his hair a mess with sweat. Bucky with his untucked crinkled shirt. Bucky with fire engine red lips. 

Steve stares at all the pieces culminating into one ugly heartbeating  _ sexy _ story and all that cotton in his guts threatens to erupt into black bile. _ Everything in him is breaking.  _

Steve laughs and his mouth is just one big crooked smirk his face hot and red like the whole thing is just some unfunny joke. “Did you fuck her?” 

Bucky shrugs and looks everywhere except at Steve as if maintaining eye contact is too much wasted secondhand embarrassment for him. “You know I ain’t one to kiss and tell,” he says with a grin that won’t stop talking.

With his eyes closed Steve hums and sways with his fingernails digging into his palm he stays grounded while Bucky stays quiet. 

“Whoever invented alcohol,” Steve says finally catching Bucky’s eye and daring him to look away, “should be shot.” He hunches forward as if he has a bad stomach ache, everything around him twisting and turning in an uncomfortable Alice In Wonderland reenactment, and the world spins and Steve laughs. 

“Oh God,” Steve mumbles into the table unsure when he even started leaning on it. “Alcohol was a mistake.” 

He can hearing a shuffle and a sigh. A moment later a hand is rubbing circles between his shoulder blades. 

“Let’s get you out of here, pal.” Bucky says and pulls Steve up from the booth. 

The moment the two step outside Steve knows that he won’t stay drunk for long. The air is wet from a misting sky and fog crawls around his ankles like a creeping apparition of this shit night. Bucky walks close to Steve, but doesn’t touch, him just making sure his sway doesn’t become erratic enough that Steve falls. 

The pair remain wordless but not quiet as Bucky whistles a tune while walking, neither really knowing where they’re going since they can’t return home until the morning, and instead wandering in the general direction of their neighborhood. 

It’s Steve that speaks first. Embarrassment and sense of duty propelling him forward in a messy spew of words. 

“M’sorry ‘bout ruinin’ your night, Buck. I know you were excited ‘n all for this ‘n now you gotta take care of me like some infant ‘n that can’t be fun when you could be out here with a girl and-” 

“Who says I’m takin’ care of you?” Bucky interrupts him. “Steve I’m just here to see how far you puke when the time comes. I’m placing bets already. Bet you can break your record of four feet if you try.” He grins, not a natural one, but a kind one nonetheless. A smile prodding for Steve to return it. Trying to put him at ease with his light hearted teasing. It makes Steve feel even worse. The guilt of how  _ good _ Bucky is to him while he’s just over here a mess. Falling apart at his seams with jealousy and- 

Oh. 

He was jealous wasn’t he. 

Tears start to prick at his eyes as the truth comes crashing down on him. No longer held back by sober delusions, he’s made to stand still and face the reality of the real reason behind the churning in his gut, separate from the alcohol and far more insidious. 

He was jealous. 

Not of Bucky, but for him.

Of the girl who got his attention. 

Of being looked at like the only light in the room. 

Of being able to touch him. 

Of being able to kiss him. 

Of the complete naturalness of their mutual attraction with none of the hurdles of of star crossed lovers. Of none of the inherent martyr fate of being each other’s soul mates. Of none of the sick tangled knots tying them together like a gag or a noose choking the life outta them.

He was jealous. Of the girl for stealing Bucky away. Of every other pair of lovers that were allowed to act on their desire. Of Bucky for being able to pretend like this is okay. That they were okay. That they weren’t the butt of a joke told by God so everything in the universe could point and laugh at the poor miserable boys fated to fall in love, but never allowed to touch. 

His belly wasn’t full of wet cotton. No it was a fire. A burning siege of rage and hurt and pain and sadness and it was eating him up from the inside out and he didn’t know if he’d be able to live with these flames licking him up. 

“Steve?” 

A hand touches his cheek. Cool to the touch. Damp on the edges. 

“Stevie you here with me?” Brown eyes bore into him. Thick furrowed brows of worry knitting Bucky’s expression. Both hands, calloused and large and cracked, smoothing over Steve’s cheeks. 

Bucky takes in an exaggerated deep breath and nods for Steve to copy him. Steve follows suit. Each inhale and exhale releasing a little spark within him. Each inhale and exhale letting embers escape his lungs and cool air to settle the fire within. 

“It’s alright, buddy. It’ll pass.” 

Steve realizes that Bucky means the drunkness, but he feels halfway to sober already and that’s no longer the problem. 

“No it won’t, Buck.” He answers him honestly and watches Bucky prepare to argue so he stops him in his tracks. “It’s not fair, Bucky. None of this is fair.” 

There’s no clarification necessary. He sees it in his eyes. That understanding. That pining. 

“I don’t know what we could’ve done to deserve this,” Steve carries on. “But it’s not fair. It’s not and I don’t get how we suppose to pretend that it is, but Bucky I can’t keep doing that. I can’t keep pretending and not talking about it and acting like we ain’t connected when we are and-” 

“Steve,” Bucky interrupts him but they both know he has nothing to say. “Steve please I-” 

He kisses him. Unpracticed and forceful. Propels himself forward on his tiptoes and hits his lips so hard against Bucky’s that he feels their teeth ringing in their head. Bucky’s caught off guard. His hands previously on either side of Steve’s face instead hanging in the air uselessly. Eyes wide open as this skinny not even 90 pounds boy jumps at him. 

It lasts barely a second until Steve pulls back. Looks at him expectantly. There’s no doubt in his eyes. Just fierce determination. 

And Bucky meets that. Grabs his wrist and pulls him to his chest and then they both stumble into the alley to their side. 

And then suddenly they’re pressed against a wet wall and kissing. Suddenly they’re touching. Steve’s hand in Bucky’s hair. Obsessed with the softness of it. Bucky’s fingers trail up his side. Along every rib. Reverent. All the while with one hand free. Pushed against a wall. Finger interlocked. 

It feels so right it feels so right it feels so right it feels so right. 

The unknotting of a tangled cord of lies spun about them since birth. An undoing of self limitations. Thrown to the wind they are pressed together. Endless in their desire. Unstoppable in their love and want. 

…

_ Weeping willow tree _

_ Weeping sympathy _

_ Bent your branches down along the ground and cover me _

_ Listen to me plead _

_ Hear me willow and weep for me _

_ Willow _

_ Willow _

_ Weep for me _

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this took forever because I'm a flimsy person with no self control, but here's my fucking soulmates au. I put a lot of effort into this and it's probably the best fic I've written or at least the longest.


End file.
